Themes From "Turtle Island"

While skimming through Gary Snyder's Turtle Island, three poems that caught my eye were “The Wild Mushroom,” "Night Herons," and "The Great Mother." While some poems, like "The Wild Mushroom," were light-hearted and blissful, others, like “Night Herons” and “The Great Mother” were critical and disheartening. However, all three poems conveyed similar themes surrounding the beauty and benefits of nature and mankind’s ruthless destruction of the environment.

            “The Wild Mushroom,” the most comical of the three, discusses the different types of mushrooms and their uses. Snyder uses a whimsical tone to suggest how even the smallest part of nature, such as the wild mushroom, “is a help to man,” whether “for food, for fun, [or] for poison” (46). He takes a grotesque fungus and transforms it into a positive image, describing the wild mushroom as “diverse and colorful” (46). This short poem is an excellent example of Snyder’s ability to see beauty and benefits of nature.

            Unlike “The Wild Mushroom,” Snyder’s poem “Night Herons” depicts a much graver image. “Night Herons” focuses on society’s annihilation of the environment to create space for industrial developments. He admires the “god-like birds,” but wonders why they return after such a drastic change in habitat (35). Snyder clearly detests the urban environment and even questions why he, like the herons, continues to remain. But though he abhors the civic lifestyle, Snyder still manages to find the beauty of nature in the “ever-fresh and lovely dawn” (35).

            In the final poem I read, “The Great Mother,” Snyder tells of the Great Mother who looks down upon mankind “to see what sort of savages they were” (20). Although this poem is brief, one can easily perceive Snyder’s feelings of disgust toward human interference in nature. Contrary to “Night Herons,” in which Snyder outlines the negative effects man has had on the environment, in “The Great Mother” he explicitly refers to the human race as “savages” (20). This direct insult establishes “The Great Mother” as the most critical of the three.

            Reading through Gary Snyder’s Turtle Island, I discovered his works all contain common themes. Snyder reveals these themes, such as the beauty and benefits of nature and mankind’s ruthless destruction of the environment, through both cheerful poems, like “The Wild Mushroom” and more serious poems, such as “Night Herons” and “The Great Mother.”